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FILE - In this Friday, May 15, 1998 file photo, Jonathan Pollard speaks during an interview in a conference room at the Federal Correction Institution in Butner, N.C. Israel's president Shimon Peres, backed by thousands of followers, is leading an all-out effort to press U.S. President Barack Obama during his upcoming visit to free convicted spy Pollard and end one of the most painful sagas between the two allies. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker, File)

Pollard Motivated As Much By Money as Israel, Investigator Says

By Robert Windrem

The Pentagon lawyer who assessed the damage to U.S. national security after Jonathan Pollard's spying arrest nearly 30 years ago says the former Navy intelligence officer was motivated by money as much as an allegiance to Israel, noting that he offered highly classified materials to at least three other countries and provided such material to two of them.

Pollard is widely considered a national hero in Israel for his espionage against the Jewish state's strongest ally. That's the reason he reportedly is being used as a bargaining chip in an effort to restart stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

But Marion "Spike" Bowman told NBC News in an exclusive interview that Pollard was much more concerned with his compensation than is commonly portrayed.

"He always wanted money," Bowman, who served as Pentagon liaison officer to the FBI at the time of Pollard's arrest and coordinated the investigation of the extent of Pollard's spying, told NBC News. "At one point, he argued with his Israeli handler about a $1,000 a month raise, citing the chances he was taking."

Bowman said Pollard received an estimated $50,000 from his Israeli handler during his two year career as a spy.

"(He) was well-compensated - demanded it," he said.

Special to NBC News

Marion 'Spike' Bowman.

Pollard also decided to maximize his profit after he began feeding information to Israel in 1984, offering his services elsewhere, Bowman said. He contacted the intelligence services of three other nations: Pakistan, South Africa -- then under apartheid rule -- and even Australia, one of the U.S. closest allies, and offered classified documents he had access to through his job as an analyst for the Naval Intelligence Command, Bowman said.

"He even disclosed classified information to a South African defense attaché," though he didn't get paid for it, said Bowman, who also served as deputy general counsel for national security law at the FBI and as deputy director of the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive during a long career in government. He also handed over a classified document to the Australian he contacted, he said.

Bowman also said that Pollard hoped to parlay his Israeli connections into a new career as an arms dealer.

Sensitive documents among those disclosed

According to U.S. officials, Pollard provided the Israelis with a vast store of classified documents - enough to fill a 10-foot-by-6-foot-by-6 foot room, by Pollard's estimation. That material presumably was all classified "top secret" or higher, because the Israelis told Pollard they already had access to less sensitive "secret" material through other means, Bowman said.

Bowman said Pollard provided two documents to the Israelis that were particularly sensitive:

The top secret Radio Signal Notations Manual (known by the acronym RAISIN), which listed the physical parameters of every known electronic signal, described how the U.S. collected such signals around the world, and listed all the known communications links then used by the Soviet Union.

"Pollard alleged at sentencing that there really was no harm done to the U.S.," recalled Bowman. "The judge interrupted and brought him up short, pointing specifically to disclosure of the RAISIN manual. He was silent after that."

Daily reports from the Navy's 6th Fleet Ocean Surveillance Information Facility (FOSIF) in Rota, Spain. These top-secret documents were filed every morning and reporting all activity in the Middle East during the previous 24 hours. "FOSIF was a critical document," said Bowman, noting that when Pollard failed to provide several days' worth of reports, his Israeli handlers "complained about the loss."

Israel's needs were not limited to its security concerns, either. "One additional disclosure is of merit: Pollard disclosed information to the Israelis that could prevent the U.S. from monitoring Israeli activities in the Middle East - clearly a foreign policy nightmare," Bowman said.

Nor did U.S. officials believe that the information leak stopped in Israel.

According to one former official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, the intelligence community feared that Israel was trading intelligence it received from Pollard to Moscow in an effort to win the freedom of imprisoned Soviet Jews.

And Bowman noted that Pollard also indirectly provided South Africa with an intelligence coup. According to Bowman, Pollard provided Israel with documents detailing what the U.S. knew about the secret strategic relationship between Israel and the apartheid regime in Pretoria. During the 1970s and 1980s, Israel provided South Africa with arms, exchanged nuclear material and helped South Africa with its ballistic missile program, according to U.S. intelligence officials and participants in the exchange. The intelligence presumably found its way to Pretoria as well, letting leaders there learn the extent of what the U.S. knew about the Israel-South Africa relationship, he said.

The full extent of the information Pollard passed to Israel has never been made public. Even though Pollard spoke with investigators about his spying after pleading guilty in 1986 to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government, Bowman said he is not persuaded that the spy told them everything.

As a result, the U.S. "may never know the full extent of the damage done" by Pollard, he said.

In an op-ed piece for the New York Times in January, Bowman wrote that "Mr. Pollard's apologists portray him as a sort of dual patriot: loyal to the United States, but also motivated to help Israel. In fact, he was primarily a venal and selfish person who sought to get rich."

"My concern about Pollard's release is that it not be for the wrong reasons," he told NBC News on Wednesday. "Even (though) people like (former CIA Director) Jim Woolsey argue for his release on 'fairness' grounds, it completely obscures the damage that Pollard, uniquely, did."

Robert Windrem

Robert Windrem is an investigative reporter/producer with NBC News. His specialty is international security, on-camera commentary on international security for MSNBC and writer on international security for NBCNews.com

Winner of 45 national journalism awards, including an Emmy as well as Dupont-Columbia, National Press Club, Sigma Delta Chi, three Edward R. Murrow and eight National Headliners Club awards. He has also been nominated for an Emmy 19 times.

Windrem produced the first report on U.S. television on Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda in January 1997; produced the first inside look of CIA Headquarters on U.S. television in February 1994; arranged and produced exclusive interviews with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in New York in September 2006, and in Tehran in July 2008. He also produced extensive reports on "Nightly News" regarding nuclear proliferation in Israel, South Africa, Iraq and Iran as well as reports on the Mexican drug wars; al Qaeda; US drone attacks in Pakistan, the Boston Marathon bombings, the Washington, D.C., snipers; campaign finance scandals, defense procurement abuse, and intelligence technology, among many others.

He contributed to NBC News documentaries on the war on terrorism, Hurricane Katrina and nuclear strategy.

Windrem co-wrote with William E. Burrows, "Critical Mass: the Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World", Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994.

He has appeared more than 300 times as an expert on national security issues on MSNBC, NBC News and CNBC as well as CBC in Canada, BBC in the UK, Channel 2 in Israel and ABC in Australia. Most recently he served as a consultant on an Israeli TV documentary on Arnon Milchan, the Hollywood producer and arms dealer.

He is a graduate of Seton Hall University with a degree in communications arts. He also pursued a graduate degree in American Studies at Seton Hall.